Today, Ubisoft and New Regency announced that they are partnering on the forthcoming Assassin's Creed film.

Ubisoft Motion Pictures, the film and television division of Ubisoft, will develop the Assassin's Creed film in close collaboration with New Regency. The development of a screenplay is beginning immediately and the project is being fast tracked as the creative pieces come together, while allowing Ubisoft to maintain control of key elements of the movie's creative direction. Financial terms of the deal are not being disclosed. Here's what Ubisoft Motion Pictures chief executive officer Jean-Julien Baronnet had to say about the new deal.

"Ubisoft chose to partner with New Regency because they are a talent- and filmmaker-driven company, with the same independent and creative mindset that we have at Ubisoft Motion Pictures. Bringing aboard New Regency's renowned production and distribution expertise while maintaining our own creative and financial flexibility ensures that Assassin's Creed will be a high-quality film that respects the lore and fans of the video game franchise."

The partnership with New Regency comes hot on the heels of Ubisoft Motion Pictures attaching distinguished actor Michael Fassbender to the Assassin's Creed film. Here's what New Regency president and chief executive officer Brad Weston had to say.

"We wanted to do everything we could to secure the rights to Assassin's Creed , which Ubisoft has maintained with such care and quality over the years. Having just finished working with Michael on Steve McQueen's 12 Years a Slave(with Plan B) made the partnership even more irresistible."

Ubisoft Motion Pictures was created in January 2011 to expand the audience of Ubisoft's successful video game brands by bringing them to film, television and Web series.

In addition to the Assassin's Creed movie, the studio also is in production on the Rabbids TV series, a collection of 78 seven-minute CGI episodes based on the insane, hilarious and silly stars of the video game franchise of the same name, in partnership with France Televisions and Nickelodeon. Ubisoft Motion Pictures also has two additional feature-length films in development based on the Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell and Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon video game franchises.

Then again, we don't even know if the story is going to follow the games yet. For all we know they'll have both Altair and Ezio in the movie, or even worse, pull a Resident Evil and give us new characters. *shivers*